Monday, November 26, 2012

Morality Thought Experiment Wombat

Question; What is more abhorrent according to your value system? Murder or Suicide?

Better yet, Suicide vs. a Murder Suicide?

Well, what if the Murder Suicide was in the "second degree" so to speak; that is the lives of both were put in reasonably obvious danger, but the actual deaths (both the murder and the murderer's suicide) were precisely unintentional?

Then what if both suicides were in the "second degree?"

(I say " " when talking about suicide in the second degree as it seems a somewhat blatantly redundant term, but given our legal system may actually exist- in which case I'm just full of bullshit when it comes to an accurate legal description)

.... if one chose to put one's life in reasonable danger (smoking cigarettes, jumping out of a plane, swimmingly in booze and sexy things, driving a car, etc.) is that morally "worse" or "better" than if one knowingly did something irresponsible that gravely endangered the lives of themselves and ("more importantly") others..... say driving around a unloading lights-a-flashing school bus w/ a go-cup & cell phone in hand, or perhaps lighting a fire on the living room floor of a first floor apartment, or unregulated and un-protested dumping of seriously scary chemicals into water systems? All of those activities put both the actor as well as many others in extreme risk... in increasing order... so why does the last one seem to be the one least likely to be addressed? The book Silent Spring came out in the 60's, we've well known for some time that dumping the leftovers from making paint, and hairspray, and poison into our backyards kills us and uncounted other forms of life.... Are we just that near sighted, careless, and suicidal? Does it make it worse that we seem to be cool with taking as many other speices down with us? Is this just nuts?

Do you know what the first thing a crazy person says is?

"I'm not crazy."

Get out and write a congressmen, e-mail the white house (easy go to whitehouse.gov and click contact), don't buy toxic crap, encourage others to use less crap, or even go so far as to avoid buying new crap - if its a little old/ used but made to last better/ longer at less than half the price of the new shiny thing, who's to say what the better value is...